Cancer Gets Lapped

 

By Rick Boettger

 

The Relay for Life, the annual event to fight cancer, should be mandatory attendance for the Citizens Voice grouches. If there is a more uplifting and inspirational event in the Keys, tell me about it, so I can go there, too.

The high point is the “Luminare” after dusk. Small bags with lighted candles line the track that people have been walking around all day, in their “relay” to raise funds for cancer research. While it was still light, I walked the course and noted the names of women I knew who died of cancer, written on the bags.

I saw Debbie Oliver’s name twice. She was a strikingly beautiful nurse and mother, who could return my best serves sharply at my feet. There were well over a hundred candles around the course, each one a choke-up memory for the living.

As the candles were lit, Melody Cooper’s choir sang uplifting songs until it was time for the silent lap, as everyone walked around the candle-lit course in the twilight without a sound, even the airplanes staying away. Then the choir sang again.

And singing again is more what the Relay is about, a celebration of life, and health, and the power of these women’s spirits to survive the dreaded Big C. The music never stops. Booths display approaches to health, “pink”-oriented crafts and food for sale.

Best were the many young people there. About 50 kids from HOB did a group dance number in superhero garb, to a triumphal march. They were joined by a half-dozen grandmas in pink tutus at the finale. No tears there!

The next day a local church, Unity of the Keys, hosted A Woman’s Story, five tales by women who survived breast cancer. Five different experiences with that common thread, by an artist, dietician, nurse, hotel owner and county official, all successful, strong women. I’ve never known a woman close to me to have had it, so I probably learned more than anyone there.

The first thing to realize is how monumental the diagnosis is. This cancer is another case of life’s double standard against women. I’ve got the male counterpart of a gender-based cancer, prostate, and for me it’s a non-event. Though one urologist says I should, of course, have my prostate removed, the rest of my medical team happily respects my choice to do nothing but read my PSA and do an occasional biopsy.

One survivor similarly decided not to have a recommended

mastectomy. She wanted to keep her parts, just as I do. She was right. Actually, all of the women there were “right,” in that they were alive to tell the tale. But women do not have the option of “active surveillance,” the jargon for my approach to prostate cancer.

They had all taken forceful action, getting immediate diagnoses and treatment within a week of discovering their lumps. Commonalities were that all used every element of western surgery, chemo and radiation they decided was right, as well as comprehensive spiritual and ketogenic, non-sugar dietary approaches.

Catherine Duncan led the “team” I joined for this, my first Relay. She just beat her fifth cancer. She had her first in her 20s, along with two other women in her daughter’s grade school class of 27. “That’s one out of nine mothers, exactly the national average.” The other two died. Catherine has used, along with every medical, dietary and alternative therapy like Reiki, an everyday regimen of meditation, prayer and, especially, song. “The vibrations . . . affirm my health.

Two of the five benefited greatly from ObamaCare. Two mentioned the strong support of their husbands, the others of friends and family. All respected their medical teams.

The distinction I remember best was by the artist and dancer, Katherine Doughty. “I am a peace seeking person. To make sense of my experience I needed to replace the dominant ‘war against cancer’ metaphor with something I could relate to.” She beat her cancer less through confrontation than accommodation. But the image of being a powerful woman warrior against a coldly powerful foe, cancer, works best for most women.

And the image of the endless walk around a track, a never-ending long haul surrounded by your friends and family, remembering the lives of those who have gone before you, immersed in song as the sun sets, will live with me until I do this again next year.

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